Neurodivergence in Tech

This is Me - Neurodivergence in Tech

Most of this is theoretical

We simply don't know how most of the brain works.

When it does.

So during this talk I want you to be asking yourself a single question:

Is this me?

This is me

In April of 2024 I started exercising. For obvious reasons.

I started tracking my activity with a smart watch.

I decided I wanted to get my data out of my phone easily.

So I decided to add a file upload feature to my standard python API.

I did this relatively quickly. Maybe 15 minutes while I remembered how to code.

Then it came to deploying it. I realied I needed somewhere to host it.

I didn't have a server, so I decided I would provision a VM.

But the idea of doing it manually didn't appeal to me,

So I started coding the deloyment in ansible.

But then I realised I didn't have ansibles for all my other servers and systems.

So I built them.

I built ansibles that deployed my website, deployed my reverse proxies via VPNs (which were also automated with Ansible) to internal networks I built ansibles that I deployed my wiki software and half a dozen other services.

Then I built some ansible playbooks to automate regular actions on the servers like updates,, data gathering, etc.

Then when I got to testing it...

Everything worked.

Except the python deployment.

I'd used 5 hours to automate everything instead of taking the 5 minutes to deploy the code manually.

Is this you?

Let's talk about Neurodivergence and what it is.

It's simple. Neurotypical is the standard thought process. Neurodivergent is just... other.

And it comes in many forms.

ADHD

This is the one I most commonly associate with.

Autism

The three little words that my girlfriend says to me most often:

"You are autistic."

Doesn't look like it does on TV, folks.

When you say "autistic" people think Sheldon Cooper or Sherlock Holmes.

What it often looks like is Dwight Schrute from the Office.